Tomball approves $17.8 million budget

Published 8:56 am, Friday, August 21, 2015

The budget shows the city will have a deficit of $3.6 million, but City Manager George Shackelford said the deficit is actually less.

"There are also outside revenues," he said.

The budget maintained the current property tax rate of 34 cents per $100 valuation and includes a three percent raise for city staff.

The city of Tomball still has not received taxable values from the Harris County Appraisal District, but based on the 2014 values, the average home appraised value, before exemptions, is $ 162,780.

The budget has $17.8 million in revenue in the general fund, and $21.4 million in expenses, which amounts to a $3.6 million deficit.

However, when you add in additional revenue of $2.4 million from other sources, the city was only short $1.2 million.

"The $1.2 million is all supplemental projects, or add-ons that are out of the normal budget process. They're new programs that if we didn't do, we'd be bringing in more than we spend," Shackelford said.

Those supplemental items include new seating for the city council chamber, funding to pay or a code enforcement officer, banking services, exterior painting for the Tomball Community Center and parks improvement projects, which includes the expansion of the splash pad at the depot.

"If you took all those out, we'd be in the black and bringing in more revenues than expenditures," he said.

Tomball Finance Director Glenn Windsor provided city leaders a look at the proposed budget during workshops held in July.

One of the most significant projects in the budget involves the rebuilding of sidewalks on Zion Road which covers a residential area from Texas 249 to Tomball Junior High School and Quinn Road.

Another sidewalk project near City Hall on Market Street is also on the list.

Collectively, both projects will cost the city $600,000 to complete.

The projects are not related to the $30 million in state transportation grant funds the city applied for earlier this year.

"We went back and forth with TxDOT and it was determined that the city is not going to handle any maintenance-related issues…We went through a report about a year ago (to determine) where all the deficiencies were. We are going to scope that out and see which repairs we want to do over the next year," said Craig Meyers, the city's community development director.

The council has set a tentative date of Sept. 14 to set the tax rate for the new fiscal year.